Bangladesh approves phase 3 trial of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine

The Bangladesh Medical Research Council has approved the phase-3 trial of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by Chinese firm Sinovac.

International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh will conduct the trial in the country, BMRC director Mahmud Uz Zahan old New Age on Sunday.

Sinovac initiated the development of an inactivated vaccine against COVID-19 named CoronaVac in January and got the approval to conduct the phase-1 and phase-2 clinical trials in China that began in April.

The phase-3 clinical trial to test the efficacy and safety of the vaccine has already been approved by a number of countries, including Brazil, one of the worst coronavirus-hit countries.

Officials said that the government authorities and the ICDDR,B were in the process of completing other formalities with Sinovac.

‘The strategic plan has been finalised and the trial is expected to begin in August,’ said an official.

Bangladesh confirmed its first COVID-19 cases on March 8.

The country’s COVID-19 cases topped two lakh on Saturday while the disease claimed the lives of more than 2,500 people.

BMRC director Mahmud said that the trial was scheduled to take more than 18 months.

Four thousand and two hundred doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers would be selected for the trial, he said, adding that half of them would be vaccinated to assess the results in comparison with the other half who would not be vaccinated.

The trial would be carried out on the healthcare providers of seven units of six COVID-19 hospitals in the capital.

The hospitals are Dhaka Medical College Hospital (two units), Mugda Medical College Hospital, Kurmitola General Hospital, Bangladesh-Kuwait Friendship Hospital, Dhaka Mohanagar Hospital and Holy Family Red Crescent Medical College Hospital.

‘We will have to wait for quite a long time to get the results as it is a time-consuming study,’ said Mahmud.

In a challenge to the West’s traditional dominance of the vaccine industry, China has eight vaccine candidates among 23 on human trials, with Sinovac’s experimental shot and another, jointly developed by the military and CanSino, being among the front runners.

The phase-3 trial results of the Oxford University-developed coronavirus vaccine are expected to be known this week.

China has focused mainly on inactivated vaccine technology — a technology that is well known and has been used to make vaccines against diseases such as influenza and measles — something that could raise the chances of success.

By contrast, several Western rivals such as US-based Moderna and Germany’s CureVac and BioNTech are using a new technology called messenger RNA that has never before yielded a product approved by regulators.

China has said that Bangladesh will get priority in terms of cooperation and support if they can successfully develop a vaccine against the coronavirus.

‘As a close neighbour and a strategic partner, Bangladesh will be among the first countries to receive vaccines from China,’ deputy chief of mission at the Chinese embassy in Dhaka Hualong Yan told reporters in June.

After a Chinese medical team concluded a 10-day visit to Bangladesh last month, Health minister Zahid Maleque said, ‘If the vaccine is found, the Chinese government will send it to Bangladesh on a priority basis.’

Vaccine expert and former chief of the Expanded Programme on Immunisation Tajul Bari said that Bangladesh being a developing country would get vaccines from the global vaccine alliance GAVI, without any cost, if anyone succeeded in developing the vaccine.

Bangladesh needs to streamline the formalities with the GAVI to get the vaccine at the earliest, he said.

Healthcare providers, elderly people and people with comorbidities like diabetes, asthma and other chest diseases, hypertension and cardiac patients will get the vaccine on a priority basis, he said.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net